Thread by @shengokai

This is not going to be the case, and it has everything to do with the way that the organization of academia makes some things, some options, as "viable," or "in reach" while others are not. Until COVID, these accommodations were one such "unreachable" object. (1/n)

https://twitter.com/DisabilityStor1/status/1334225480543842304

Even in the above tweet, which I agree with, the organization of academia as a space is made clear through the language we use: academia must be made "accessible," disabled folks must be "accommodated" by a space that was not organized with us in mind. (2/n)

In this sense, "access" and "accommodation" have the same affective force as "imposition:" disabled folks impose themselves, and their desires, upon an institution whose workings were just fine BEFORE our crip selves started to complain about not being able to conference. (3/n)

Now, to be clear, calls for accessibility are transformed into complaints by institutions which then allows institutions to turn disabled folks into the source of the problem, to point out a theme here: academia is a space prepared for some bodies and not others. (4/n)

Here, I mean "bodies" in the literal, physical sense as the very physical space of our institutions does not admit of our presence in ways that @ashleyshoo and other have pointed out far more eloquently than I can. So, a world "prepared" is a world that can be taken up. (5/n)

And a world that can be taken up is a world that is accessible to some bodies and not others. It is a world that can be inherited by some people and not others through the very fact of its inaccessible organization. Academia, in this sense, is an inheritance of/for ableism. (6/n)

Which gets me to COVID and why these changes won't last. What COVID has done is rendered INACCESIBLE the world that able bodies inherit. It has, point of fact, put these spaces out of reach for the people who were used to taking them up without effort or modification. (7/n)

During COVID, moving through space became a risk. During COVID, the tables around which power gathers became a threat. During COVID, participating in the structures of the institution meant placing oneself at risk. So, when the space became the danger, the space changed. (8/n)

Here, I'm going to say something problematic: when COVID placed institutions initially out of reach more vulnerable populations, prompting academics to ask for accommodations, the academy responded to these requests in the same ways that it had to disabled folks' requests. (9/n)

And it did so using the same logics (here, I mean in the Deweyan sense of a pattern of action) that had served to maintain its inaccessibility. Now, able bodied folks had to proceed through the same institutional structures navigated by disabled scholars for decades. (10/n)

However, there was one key difference: now the inaccessibility of the institution was an existential threat. Now, the institution's resistance to being made accessible was seen as placing LIVES in danger. Now, inaccessibility was viewed as denying an inheritance of safety. (11/n)

So, when COVID transformed the structure of academia into a threat to the safety of the able bodied academic, the accommodations that the structure positioned as "out of reach," or "inaccessible," were suddenly incorporated into the inheritance of the academy. (12/n)

Thus, to the academy, these are no longer accommodations: they are expansions of the inheritance of able bodied persons. They are ways of preserving the inaccessibility of the institution by naturalizing "impossible" options as a response to an "impossible" situation. (13/n)

That being said, I don't think these options will stick around because they will no longer be necessary to maintain the inheritance once the structure of the academy ceases to be an existential threat to how it was inherited by able bodied academics. (14/n)

And, if we want proof of this, look at the ways that the academy has responded to concerns by disabled students, faculty, and staff for whom Zoom intensifies their disability and for whom the academy has provided no accommodation. After all, we got what we wanted, right? (15/n)

But this wasn't at all what we wanted, nor is it what we needed.

If you want to hear the talk that does this, but for 30 minutes, you should check out this amazing conference that I'm honored to be a part of.

bsg.ox.ac.uk/events/philoso…